procps/free.1

.\"             -*-Nroff-*-
.\"  This page Copyright (C) 1993 Matt Welsh, mdw@sunsite.unc.edu.
.\"  Long options where added at April 15th, 2011.
.\"  Freely distributable under the terms of the GPL
.TH FREE 1 "15 Apr 2011 " "Cohesive Systems" "Linux User's Manual"
.SH NAME
free \- Display amount of free and used memory in the system
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B free
.RB [ options ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBfree\fP displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap 
memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel.
The shared memory column should be ignored; it is obsolete.
.SS OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-b, \-\-bytes\fR
Display the amount of memory in bytes.
.TP
\fB\-k, \-\-kilo\fR
Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. This is the default.
.TP
\fB\-m, \-\-mega\fR
Display the amount of memory in megabytes.
.TP
\fB\-g, \-\-giga\fR
Display the amount of memory in gigabytes.
.TP
\fB\-\-tera
Display the amount of memory in terabytes.
.TP
\fB\-h, \-\-human\fP
Show all output fields automatically scaled to shortest three
digit unit and display the units of print out. Following units
are used.

.nf
  B = bytes
  K = kilos
  M = megas
  G = gigas
  T = teras
.fi

If unit is missing, and you have petabyte of RAM or swap, the
number is in terabytes and columns might not be aligned with
header.
.TP
\fB\-c, \-\-count\fR \fICOUNT\fR
Display the result \fIcount\fR times.  Requires the \fB\-s\fR option.
.TP
\fB\-l, \-\-lohi\fR
Show detailed low and high memory statistics.
.TP
\fB\-o, \-\-old\fR
Display the output in old format, the only difference being this option
will disable the display of the "buffer adjusted" line.
.TP
\fB\-s, \-\-seconds\fR \fISECONDS\fR
Continuously display the result \fIdelay\fP seconds apart. You
may actually specify any floating point number for \fIdelay\fP, 
.BR usleep (3)
is used for microsecond resolution delay times.
.TP
\fB\-\-si\fP
Use power of 1000 not 1024.
.TP
\fB\-t, \-\-total\fR
Display a line showing the column totals.
.TP
\fB\-\-help\fP
Print help.
.TP
\fB\-V, \-\-version\fR
Display version information.
.SH FILES
.nf
/proc/meminfo memory information
.fi
.SH AUTHORS
Written by Brian Edmonds. 

Send bug reports to <procps@freelists.org>
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR ps "(1), " slabtop "(1), " top "(1), " vmstat (8).
.\"{{{}}}